It Took Bad Weather Conditions to put the rival countries together at the same level!

Indian and Pakistan were playing against each other in the 5th Men’s Hero Asian Champions Trophy, Muscat 2018 Hockey Tournament on 28th October. Due to the heavy rainfall, the tournament was called off and both teams were declared joint winners.

The storm happened to arrive just ahead of the title encounter. After waiting for almost more than an hour for the rains to subside, it seemed impossible to continue with the match. After a meeting between the officials of the two teams along with the technical delegate, Brian Fernandez of Malaysia, a final announcement was made to pronounce both India and Pakistan as joint winners.

India was keen to defend its earlier 2016 title which it won back in Kuantan, Malaysia when the team beat arch-rivals Pakistan 3-2 in the Final. But due to the match being terminated early, they could not claim victory over Pakistan at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex in Oman.

The Indian team however, was the highest scoring team in the competition as it scored a total of 30 goals in six matches. Being at World No. 5, India remained undefeated in the competition with five wins and a draw in their six matches. India also defeated the hosts Oman by 11-0, Pakistan by 3-1, Japan 9-0 and South Korea by 4-1. However, India drawed against Malaysia by 0-0 in the round robin stages.

Beating Japan once again in the semi-final with a score of 3-2, India furthered its position into the finals smoothly.

Goal Scorers

The Indian tally consisted of 11 different goal-scorers. India’s Harmanpreet Singh scored six goals, the maximum goals for India, while forwards Mandeep Singh and Dilpreet Singh scored a five each.

Later ten members of the Indian team, who were part of the Asian Champions Trophy (ACT) hockey tournament in Muscat on Sunday, spent a few hours with music maestro A.R. Rahman.